Nov 17, 2011

In a social development that has the nation’s sociologists bristling with academic excitement and egghead-like verve, an area man, Festus Bodine, 43, has had the entire Greater Lamont Metropolitan Area (GLMA) turn their backs on him and slam the doors of social acceptance in his face after word leaked out that he somehow manages to cope with his crushing failure, utter hopelessness and dismal future prospects without hitting the bottle or guzzling a couple of cheap twelve packs of beer by noon on a typical work day, insiders report. Mr. Bodine, a farmer/rancher and proprietor of the “Dopey Z” ranch that he inherited because he was, of course, the dumbest son and the dumbest son always inherits the ranch in these parts. Anyway, although he has every reason to hide from himself and his almost unbelievable dysfunction in the bottom of a glass of cheap hooch, instead he likes to tie knots, shovel manure and cut his own hair when the weight of his collective failure comes crashing down on him like an avalanche of all consuming human hopelessness.

“Well, it just ain’t natural, that’s all” said Wilber Festoon, an area rancher and ironically also the dumbest son of the somewhat questionable “Festoon brood”, although his parentage has been in question since he was born with reddish hair in a family of brown eyed, dark haired males. “I mean, I just don’t see why he has to go putting on airs thinking he is all better than us as we drink ourselves blind and our collective livers are the size of a school bus!” fumed the indignant rancher Festoon. “If he had a lick of social decency, he would hide bottles of rot gut all over his ranch like any normal rancher does in these parts and have an almost unlimited supply of $1.99 six-packs stashed up in the hay loft like any normal person would. Sure, he is just as goofed up and dysfunctional as the rest of us, maybe a little more, maybe a little less, but he ain’t winning himself any favors with that holier-than-thou attitude and snooty inability to go thru life three sheets to the wind and in a reeking, mind-numbed blur like any half-way decent American rancher worth his salt would do! I just find his haughty attitude about pickling his innards a tad pretentious and ‘off-putting’, that’s all!” he raved drunkenly. “Sure, it is hell being the dumbest son and being forced to look at the backside of a cow from dawn till dusk for one’s entire life, that is the price we pay for rejecting education and dropping out of school in the 8th grade, but the least the man could do is join into the collective misery and get sloshed like the rest of us. I just can’t stand to be around a man who can’t gulp a 16 ounce beer then burp the Star Spangled Banner. I’m starting to wonder if he is really an American at all but instead is one of them Commie plants sent here by the Russkies to undermine our way of life or something!” he stammered boozily before wiping his stubbly chin on the sleeve of his quite malodorous work shirt that has the unfortunate byproducts of at least 20 head of cattle worked into the fibers at any given moment and that is in desperate need of a good washing, although his wife is usually too sloshed to work the controls on their 20 year old washing machine.

When asked for comment, the big sissy ‘goodie-two-shoes’ Festus managed to mutter “Well, it ain’t like I got nothing against drinking or nothing, but the wife is as crafty as a dadburned fox and discovered all my hiding places years ago and I’ll be derned if that woman don’t ferret out and guzzle any booze I got hid before a man has a decent chance to partake in its deceptively destructive pleasures and liver taxing goodness, if you get my meaning” he said while winking awkwardly. (Editorial Note: Oh, the humanity!!! People please, stay in High School until you graduate or you, too, might end up crafting sentences like that! You don’t have to go to college – but at least graduate from High School! Please! Thank you!!! And whatever you do, don't EVER wink for added emphasis for a weak, unsupportable point that makes almost no sense whatsoever! Come on!!)